Movie Conventions Research: Knives Out Glass Onion

  Welcome back to my blog. In many mystery movies there are certain tell-tale signs that tell you what is going on. For example, when the lights go out in a mystery movie there usually is a death in the darkness. In the movie I chose the murder was committed and then the lights turned dark. This change in the series of events challenges this convention. Another element of a mystery is the role of a detective. These detectives typically solve the case through a series of steps. We see this in Kives Out many times when the detective finds small details that normal people would miss. Another element of the mystery genre is setting, in regular mystery movies the setting is usually dark and rainy and in a very strange environment. In the movie I watched there were blue skies and open spaces which made the viewer feel comfortable rather than fearful. Toward the end of the movie there was more of a traditional dark and gloomy feel. What I really liked about this movie was that it kept you guessing. Just when you felt you were catching on, at the last minute the story line changes directions. Another thing I really liked was in the first couple of scenes the characters had to solve their own little mystery before getting to the storyline of the bigger mystery. The mystery they had to solve was many clues hidden in a box that each character played a part in to solve. Although the movie I watched was a good mystery, I felt there were a couple elements that could have been better. One element that could have been better was that some of the twists were too complicated for the viewer to catch on to. As a viewer, I like to be able to solve the mystery, but the twists made it too complicated to follow. Another thing that did not appeal to me was the ending. It felt thrown together rather than thought out. In the end the whole island burned down and that was the end of the story. This made me very disappointed in the director’s choice for the ending of the movie.